Lightroom: Wish for a "cancel" button on "Back Up Catalog" box

If I had only one wish for the next Lightroom update, it would be a cancel button on the last dialog when you close a catalog. I like the reminder to back up each time, but sometimes I click quit too soon or by accident. It would be great if the "Back Up Catalog" dialog included "cancel" next to "Skip this time" and "back up." Thanks.

Once you do File -> Exit you are committed to exit. There's no turning back! The exit dialog needs a Cancel button. If you "x" the dialog, Lightroom will exit anyway, which is unexpected behavior (in my experience, killing a dialog is equivalent to cancelling it).

When exiting lightroom the dialog window asks if you want to back up the catalog and you can or simply skip this time but clicking the x to close the dialog window simply exits the program. If you want to change your mind and not exit you still have to exit. If you select exit and then decide not to you are forced to exit.

Wish that when you quit Lightroom and the backup window comes up, you could cancel quitting as well as backing up or not backing up. Working fast, "command-q" happens accidentally sometimes and I would love to have the choice to not quit. Thanks.

Not infrequently I accidentally hit Cmd-Q instead of Cmd-Tab (to change applications). This brings up the Backup Catalog Before Exit dialogue box and I'm then stuck quitting LR and having to restart it. Hitting Esc does not abort the exit process.

Please ask Adobe to include a Cancel option in that diagoue box so I can just return to LR without quitting.

It'd be good to have a way to cancel accidentally quitting LR. Sometimes I accidently hit the Comm. + Q and LR quits (without giving the option to cancel the action). An "Are you sure you want to quit LR?" warning would be helpful.

Is it possible to design Lightroom such that when you click on the "Close" X in the top right hand corner, it provides an option NOT to close. I find myself clicking on it by mistake, say, when I am in Survey mode instead of typing "G", and have to close and reopen LR.

Absolutely amazing that Adobe hasn't addressed this longstanding issue. For a while I'd found a solution to hitting "Comm + Q" accidently by changing the shortcut to Quit LR to "Comm + Option + Q." But that went away when I just did the latest LR update and I can't figure out how I changed that in the first place. Adobe support was of no help on this. And even with the accidental quitting by hitting "Comm +Q" solved, the problem with accidentally hitting "Comm + W" remained, as I was unable to change the W shortcut. Allowing customizable shortcuts and/or providing a "cancel" button on quitting LR is such a no brainer, and this has gone on for so many years that I get to wonder what the hell is going on at Adobe.

The forced exit via the backup dialog when the Windows Close (X on the top left) is hit is the most frustrating issue I have in LR having used it since v2, and have read all the other requests for a fix here and on the forum for such a basic enhancement. I can't think of another Windows program that does not have an intermediate dialog to confirm your exit or allow a cancel back into where you were working. I hit Close regularly since the photo viewer software I use simple closes that image and returns to the list of images - my brain is not good enough to keep in mind I'm in LR and not elsewhere. Please add this feature.

Of course you don't have to let Lightroom make a catalog backup on quit. You can do it less regularly, or you can decide not do to it at all (at least not by Lightroom), but use a general backup package that makes regular backups of your entire disk, including the Lightroom catalog. In that case just do catalog optimize from time to time.

Why do people keep misinterpreting the issue being discussed here and in other forums - we must have trouble expressing ourselves? I did not say anything about wanting or not wanting a backup. The actual issue is exiting/quitting LR and wanting a Cancel option to prevent unwanted exits/quits. As some users have suggested, the Cancel button could be included on the Backup dialog (thus preventing a quit and a backup at that time and returning to work in the current LR database).But it would be better to have a separate 'Do you really want to Quit?'. (thanks for suggesting a using a regular BU - I do this nightly).

Well, I don't know about Windows, but on my Macintosh a database application like FileMaker does not have such an extra step (and I would find it irritating if it did). It just quits when I hit Cmd-Q. Same for my word processor (unless I have unsaved documents) and most other application I can think of.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled report bug.

Golly guys, why is Lightroom the only program left on the planet that will not let you cancel shutting it down. Sooooo often I hit the wrong button and find myself with the only choice being back up or no back up. I want a Cancel button, is that too much to ask? Even Microsoft does this.....

And while you are at it fix the damn server busy error, I have been living with that cursed piece of code for years. Grrrrrr. Nothing fixes it. I have tried everything short of human sacrifice.

Correct typing is not the issue, it is when you change your mind. The x to cancel the dialog box is pretty much universal everywhere except Lightroom. How difficult can it be to change the code to do that. Inability to type the correct key is really a non issue, the issue is expecting the dialog box to behave the same way as every other dialog box.

I thought it was just me! :) Too often when moving quickly between applications and with the w and q keys next to each other I accidentally quit Lightroom. Just another button in the closing dialog box would be so wonderful... Thanks for considering!!!

THis thread started 5 years. It is clear that Adobe is not "considering" this. It's not as though it is impossible. If you set LR to perform a task, like, say, Export, and then you attempt to close LR, it asks you if you really want to do so. So, it is feasible. For whatever reason, Adobe has decided to ignore this.

I live in the Bay Area, and go to User Group talks at Adobe, and I have gone in and played with new features for other products they are developing. Earlier this year on one of those visits I heard they have something like 40 people working on LR, so keep mentioning this, they will do it if enough people tell them to. It is a squeaky wheel issue.

I have found—especially with very large catalogs in which LR creates a zip archive as the backup—the most workable solution is to not allow LR to make ANY backups. Instead, I use a third-party utility to mirror the dedicated drive where I have located Lightroom. I can cancel the 'backup' (which is actually a mirror by any other name) whenever I wish and the application—in this case SyncBuddy for the Mac OS—only begins the backup when Lightroom has closed. Restore is a simple matter of copying the mirror back to the source.

The only manual step I have to perform is to remember to optimize the catalog in Lightroom before quitting (although this isn't a stringent requirement IMHO).

I found myself going down this path as my catalog grew into the GB range because LR was so damn slow in performing the backup; it took hours for LR to quit.

There are simply some tasks for which LR is woefully inadequate; e.g., backup, moving of files, copying of files, naming or renaming of files, lens/camera profiles, etc. I have found it better for a robust catalog and image file system to allow specialist software to perform these tasks.

Unfortunately, LR is also pretty crappy at managing hierarchial keywords, but I do not see any alternative but to struggle along with LR for that chore.

That’s not the point being discussed. It’s simply having Adobe add a cancel button to the close dialog. Often when you think you are closing an image you are closing Lr. It’s a huge time sink to have to reopen the program, back up or not, you can’t cancel once you hit close, your only option is back up or not.

We've been waiting for over six years. The point of that is Adobe is NOT listening. Therefore, we have to come up with other options. I simply proposed one—that was my point. Please feel free to come up with your own alternative or keep waiting on Adobe, but don't hold your breath.

I've been on this thread for probably 6 years waiting for this feature (along with a couple other crazy-obvious feature requests). Always glad to see someone new bring it up agaIn because it's beyond frustrating. Just don't get too worked up. I think Adobe would rather see us suffer.

Given my experience with relational database systems, I think the reason Adobe has not offered a solution is because they cannot—not as long as LR is based upon SQL-lite. It's not a true relational database with fourth- or even third-level integrity, much less full referential integrity, so when it starts to parse the database it is committed to the bloody end.

If Adobe switched to MS SQL or Oracle, this would not be a problem, except their profits would decrease (or our costs would increase).

So we have to figure out a workaround. I have one which works for me. Others will find their mileage will vary.

The solution is rather easy: stop expecting LR to do the backup, it's half baked at best and far from an adequate backup schema. Turn this silly option OFF. Use a product designed to backup everything you can't afford to lose!